I recently had to break up with my best friend. I realized how bad they were for me and my mental health, and it was even bleeding into my physical health (I have a new degenerative issue thanks to stress, oh boy! I guess at least it wasn’t a heart attack..?)

So I’ve been super isolated for a few months now. I only had a couple people in my life at all, and this friend was the only one in my area, and the one who actually talked to me more than weekly whether I reached out or not. We vibed super well together and they really got me. It’s super hard to give that up.

But it’s actually going well? I don’t feel worse, kinda a wash between better and not better, I just don’t have anyone to share my accomplishments with anymore. And the good feels are a huge motivator for me to get stuff done, I have a need to share.

So I’ll try here!

This week I’ve finished a bunch of stuff that I’ve meant to get done! I got my water heater installed (did it myself except electrical, boy is showering at home nice!), I raked most of my leaves into the chicken yard for them to play in, tho the rest decided today and tomorrow are the time to fall so it’ll happen again after all the rain.

And today I finished the new cover for my chicken run, and got it put up right before it started to rain! It’s weather protection over the part of the run I can trap them in if needed, like to repair the main run fence or whatever (I’m in town, fencing them in is required, and my yard is very exposed to elements). During winter they end up stuck in there for extended periods whenever it snows heavily, so it was important to get done before it got cold. Fortunately it’s been shorts weather… it certainly shouldn’t be 70 in November here, but it is… and I’m thankful for it.

I used to have plastic tarps on it, they were noisy in the wind, and only lasted 6 months before they had holes in them and needed replacing. Instead I made my own tarps. I (very roughly) followed this video, but I’m a massive cheapskate and like to reuse what I can. So I got an old crockpot someone was throwing out due to damage that makes it unsafe to leave unattended, and used it to melt all the old candle remnants I’ve been saving over my 40 years of life (ended up being about 6 lbs of wax), strained out all the crap (glitter, dust, paint, etc), and used that for the base. My ex-friend’s mom (screw ex-friend, their mom is still my friend!) gave me a bunch of old bed sheets, so I used that as the structure. I got a sewing machine from 1970 from my dad’s partner which I spent three weeks trying to figure out how to use.

This whole thing cost a grand total of $12, and that was for the gallon of mineral oil, of which I used half. For contrast, last year I bought 6 tarps to cover the same area, and each one was $8-12. And they only lasted one winter. This new thing should last several years.

I used 6 bed sheets that were going to be thrown out, sewed them into a big…. Cozy? Idk. Fitted cover. I attached tie on straps all over it on the inside so it would be easy to attach to the frame or the galvanized mesh (that part of the run is animal proof as it feeds into the coop, I take their safety pretty seriously since they can’t go anywhere else) and then I spent two days in the nude sweating my ass off over hot wax and a hot iron to press that wax into the fabric. HOLY SHIT Y’ALL! It was exhausting and hot and made me throw up four times! Every other sentence out of my mouth was “ah fuck that’s hot!” Because I burned myself again. Also I should have been wearing pants, I burned myself several times with wax dripping off the iron. I mixed my wax heavy on mineral oil because we get midwestern winters here and I don’t want it cracking and flaking in the cold. That made it disgustingly greasy to work on.

I got it finished, and put it up all by myself! (Considering it’s 10x12x6ft at the peak, and the 6 sheets plus wax weighed like half a ton, that’s an accomplishment!). It is not at all perfect, and it isn’t fully attached yet in the front, cuz it was starting to get cold and rainy as I was working, it leaves a lot to be desired, but its so much quieter! It covers so much better! It’s so much less wasteful than replacing what I had!

Now my chicken run smells like cinnamon shit. Scented candle wax is umm.. not super ideal for this use, but it was free. I imagine that will fade in a few days (it did make the 2-day ironing process even more hell, though..)

If I had to do it all again, I would

1. Wear pants
2. not use cinnamon wax at all
3. wax first, sew after (though this old machine wouldn’t have been able to handle that, it barely handled regular seams)
4. get help putting it on
5. umm probably do a better job of measuring… I genuinely eyeballed it after measuring the frame, and it worked out ok. But it would have been better if I was a better planner.
6. probably dip one sheet in the wax, then fold them together and iron? Ladeling it was not a great idea. Getting all the layers of such a big thing was a pain in the ass.

So here’s the thing below! Not terribly impressive to look at, sure, but so much work! you can see I missed some spots where it’s really light, but I’ll fix those on a warmer day. Around the bottom where it doesn’t reach the ground will be reinforced when the cold hits. I have some old siding that I use for that, that way it gets some air movement while still warm.

Next up - building a new, much larger, coop, made entirely from cardboard and reclaimed materials!